Lost Time
by Mindy35
Summary: Jack/Liz. Jack learns the value of hugs.


Title: Lost Time

Author: Mindy

Rating: K

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Tina Fey et al. Quote is Mirabai.

Pairing: Jack/Liz

Spoilers: "Kidney Now."

Warnings: Character death

Summary: Jack learns the value of hugs.

-x-x-x-x-

"_I know a cure for sadness:_

_Let your hands touch something that_

_makes your eyes_

_smile…"_

When Milton dies, he isn't sure what to feel. He's never truly grieved a parent before. Particularly not one he'd only hoped to know. He'd like to have something to do at a time like this. Something to organise, something to escape to. Something that might begin the healing process, or help him forget his loss, or make him feel somehow in control again.

All the funeral arrangements, however, will be made by Milton's family. A family he doesn't know and whose grief is as foreign to him as his is to them. There's nothing for him to do or contribute. There's little to say and no one to call. Certainly his mother could not hear of this yet. The only person Jack could call in a situation like this – the only person who might possibly understand what he is feeling because she's been there every step of the way; she'd urged him to find his father in the first place, she'd tracked him down, introduced them and encouraged him not to give up on the relationship – that person is already with him.

They've been sitting in silence for over two hours in a blue hospital waiting room, on hard plastic seats, surrounded by other families coming and going and tattered years-old magazines. Objectively, Jack is rather impressed with Lemon's ability to remain so consistently quiet. She's rarely a woman of few or no words. But when he'd finally called her, after vacillating over it for an hour or so, all she'd said was:

"I'll be right there."

And when she arrived, she simply dropped her bag on the floor and eased herself into the chair next to him. Somehow, instinctively, she seemed to know he did not wish to talk. He didn't want anything more than her presence, her support, her understanding. Just someone to witness this moment in his life; to know precisely what it meant to him, what he'd never get back, all the time lost. And, for whatever it was worth, there was no one else he would even consider sharing it with.

Later, she wordlessly brought him coffee and tried to share one of the plastic, hospital sandwiches with him. In the end though, neither of them wanted to eat and Lemon gave the sandwich to a little boy who was pacing the corridor with his dad, waiting to hear when his sister would be born.

The child was long gone by the time the doctor came in to deliver the news. Lemon sat up straighter in her chair as he entered. Jack raised his eyes from the floor. And when the doctor informed them that Milton had passed, he felt her gaze shift over to him. She watched him stand, shake hands with the doctor and thank him. Then silently, she followed him down the corridor to the chapel, taking a seat in one of the pews as he lit a candle for his father.

After a long few minutes, Jack turns to see Liz gazing about at the flower arrangements. She budges across as he moves to sit next to her. He clasps his hands together loosely and bows his head, not praying exactly, just recalling the time he and Milton had played catch in his office. He feels her smaller hand slip between his and give a squeeze. She leaves it there a moment.

"I'm really sorry, Jack."

"Thankyou, Lemon," he murmurs, bobbing his bowed head.

Her hand slips away again, though he wishes it didn't. He hears her draw in a breath and release it, and feels her hand graze his shoulder before dropping back into her lap. A few more minutes pass in silence.

"You know that hug you offered me before?" he asks.

Her voice is soft, softer than he's ever heard it when she answers: "Ye-ah?"

He clears his throat and straightens to look at her. "I think I'd like one of those."

"Sure," she says and gets to her feet.

All the better to hug him, he supposes and as Lemon is more experienced in these matters, he rises also, his arms hanging uncertainly at his sides. While he feels an odd need inside to indulge in what he's previously scorned, he's not quite sure how to begin. They've hugged before, of course, but always briefly, always spontaneously and always at Lemon's instigation. It's not something they've ever yielded to during times of high emotion.

Jack is generally ill at ease with moments of any emotion. And presently, he's far too aware of what he is doing. It doesn't feel natural. It doesn't feel like when he's invited other women into his arms either. He's very used to having a woman in his arms, touching her, clutching her, embracing her, possessing her. That is comfortable for him. But this is not that. This is something entirely different, something he's never tried before.

Complete surrender. Total vulnerability, total dependence, total need, total trust. He needs her right now, and she is there for him. All he has to do is reach out and allow her in.

He eyes her up and down momentarily, then shuffles closer. He's not exactly certain where his hands are meant to go. Over her shoulders feels like he would be strangling her. Around her waist feels too much like a slow dance. He tries to remember the other times they've done this, but he doesn't remember anything beyond his surprise and delight. And that her happiness had been infectious, drawing an unwittingly wide smile from him as she enveloped him in her Lemonness – her smell, her warmth, her genuine joy.

Lemon makes a funny beckoning gesture to him as encouragement and he steps in closer, sliding one arm over her shoulder and the other about her body. She does the same, her head tucked neatly over his shoulder and her body fitted against his, from top to toe. In the quiet, he can hear her breath, can feel her heart beating, constant and quiet against his chest.

"This is good," he says eventually, letting all the breath leave his body.

"I told you," she murmurs.

"I could get used to this," he adds, nodding slightly and feeling her hair catch on his stubble.

"You're not bad at it, actually," she tells him: "for a guy with so little hugging practice."

"Milton was a hugger," he replies.

"Ah…There you go…" She pauses then says: "Maybe those Greene genes are kicking in."

He smiles. "Maybe."

Liz pats his back a few times in response, her encircling arms strong and warm and patient. Jack heaves a sigh, relaxing in her hold, and not thinking, not wanting anything more of the moment but the simplicity of what it is. After a while, he starts to lose all sense of time.

"How long is this supposed to last?" he asks her.

Lemon pulls back to look at him, not leaving his custody, a small smile on her lips: "However long you want."

"Oh," he nods, drawing her back in and closing his eyes: "Maybe just a little longer."

"Okay," she replies, her breath brushing his neck as she settles in again.

Lemon hugs him for a full twelve minutes. He knows because when he opens his eyes, he sees the chapel clock ticking over. He's not sure where all those minutes went. He supposes it's a long time to hug a person. Not that she seems to mind. And as she points out to him when he finally releases her, he's making up for lost time.

_END._


End file.
